A banner waves in the wind in front of the clubhouse of the Rome Tennis Center at Berry College on Saturday, July 16, 2016. The 60-court facility saw it's first tournament action with the Georgia State Junior Open. (Jeremy Stewart/RN-T.com)

TENNIS: Rome Tennis Center at Berry College named new host of GHSA State Tennis Championships

A banner waves in the wind in front of the clubhouse of the Rome Tennis Center at Berry College on Saturday, July 16, 2016. The 60-court facility saw it's first tournament action with the Georgia State Junior Open. (Jeremy Stewart/RN-T.com)

THOMASTON, GA – The Georgia High School Association today announces it has contracted with the beautiful new Rome Tennis Center at Berry College to hold the State Tennis Championships at the 60-court facility beginning next spring.

Girls and boys finals in all seven GHSA classifications will be held at the RTCBC for the first time on Saturday, May 12, 2018, ending a 10-year run for the championships at the Clayton County Tennis Center at International Park in Jonesboro.

“We want to publicly thank the fine people at the Clayton County facility for 10 great years,” said GHSA Tennis Coordinator Steve Figueroa. “They couldn’t have been more pleasant to work with. They did everything they could to make the finals run smoothly every year and we were very happy at that facility for the last decade.

“But no facility with 16 courts can compete with the 60-court layout at the new Rome center. It is the state of the art in Georgia and probably the Southeast.”

An exact schedule for the finals at RTCBC will be posted at a later date on the GHSA web site, but it is anticipated that 40 courts will be used for competition, thus allowing all eight girls matches to be put on at the same time in a morning session with all eight boys finals going on simultaneously in an afternoon session.

In the past, only four team matches (consisting of three singles matches and two in doubles) could be on the courts at the same time, with each team match using four courts and having the No. 3 singles match wait for an available court.

But with 40 courts in use, all five lines of each team match can go on at the same time in all eight divisions (Classes 2-A through 7A, and Class A Public and Private). This will mean exact match times for all classes and no waiting for the No. 3 singles players.

“The Rome Tennis Center at Berry College welcomes the GHSA State Tennis Championships to the City of Rome and we look forward to a wonderful competition featuring the best high school tennis teams in Georgia,” said Tom Daglis, Executive Director of the RTCBC.

The RTCBC also will offer advantages to spectators, as there is permanent outdoor seating for 800 spectators along with 220 parking spaces directly on site and 250 more on the hill directly adjacent to the tennis center. All-day admission to the fabulous facility will be just $5 and parking will be free.

“We are very excited to be able to hold our tennis finals at a facility like this one,” said GHSA Executive Director Robin Hines. “We are fortunate to have a center like this one in Georgia and it was an easy decision to move the state finals to a show place like the Rome Tennis Center at Berry College. We hope this will be a great championship site for many years to come.”